


Far Far Away (A Long Time Ago) [Fic and Podfic]

by poppetawoppet, SomethingIncorporeal



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Audio Content, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Childhood, Embedded Audio, Fluff, Gen, Light angstish, Peter Pan Elements, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Available, Podfic Cover Art, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-06-22 11:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15581148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppetawoppet/pseuds/poppetawoppet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomethingIncorporeal/pseuds/SomethingIncorporeal
Summary: John and Sherlock met as adults, except, they met when John was in school, and Sherlock was a strange boy from far far away.The Peter Pan AU I didn’t think I’d write.





	Far Far Away (A Long Time Ago) [Fic and Podfic]

**Author's Note:**

> There is no Cambridge School for Boys as far as I know, it’s just the city that always comes to mind when I think of England.

Cover Art provided by SomethingIncorporeal

| 

##  Far Far Away (A Long Time Ago)

  


**Author:** poppetawoppet  
  
**Reader:** SomethingIncorporeal  
  
**Fandom:** BBC Sherlock  
  
**Rating:** General Audiences  
  
**Warnings:** N/A  
  
**Summary:** John and Sherlock met as adults, except, they met when John was in school, and Sherlock was a strange boy from far far away.  
  


## Streaming Audio

  
[Click Here for Mobile Streaming](http://www.somethingincorporeal.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/Far%20Far%20Away.mp3)  
  
[MP3](http://www.somethingincorporeal.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/Far%20Far%20Away.mp3) | **Size:** 11 MB| **Duration:** 12:27  

  
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Present Day

John recognizes the man he’s introduced to. That’s what the back of his mind says as Sherlock deduces John’s army past.

He can’t quite place it, this sense of deja vu. He thinks perhaps it’s one of the soldiers he served with, or maybe a patient he treated during his early years as a doctor.

That must be it. There is no other way he would know this man who is at least five years his junior.

 

1985

John is six years old when they meet.

The Cambridge School for Boys is blue blazers, khaki pants, and ties that are quietly adjusted when rumors of the headmaster appearing are passed between classes. There is some rough housing and joking between classes and during meals, but anything untoward is immediately stifled. Any normal boyhood activities are funneled into appropriate sports and debate club arguments that always have three sides.

John is with the nurse while the rest of the boys accompany the headmaster on a walk in the rain. (Walk of course, meaning staying perfectly in line, two by two, and showing what _good boys_ they are and how they are going to be such _fine upstanding men_.

“Oh. Hello,” the boy tilts his head. “I thought all of you left.”

  
John blinks. He is awake, because the queasiness in his tummy is too real for a dream.

  
“I’m sick,” he says.

  
“Oh. Brilliant. I’m Sherlock, and I seem to have lost my shadow.”

  
John blinks again. “John. The nurse is eating her lunch and won’t be back for another hour probably. I’m supposed to be resting.”

  
“Well, this just looks like such a good place for a shadow to come, don’t you think?”

  
“I’m not sure the headmaster would allow shadows to stay here. It isn’t very appropriate.”

  
Sherlock laughs. “Yes, but my shadow is quite clever.”

  
John looks out the window. This strange boy is much more fun than all the others here.

  
“Did you ever think that maybe your shadow is just waiting for the sun to come out?”

  
Sherlock shakes his head. “No, where I come from, shadows love the rain.”

  
“And where is that?”

  
Sherlock pauses, and points vaguely upward and eastward. “Away. I don’t have to wear a tie, and no one tells me what to eat.”

  
“That sounds like a fun place to live.”

  
“Maybe one day you can come. But not today.”

  
John puts his hands on his tummy. “Not today.”

  
Sherlock nods, and John has to rub his eyes as the boy flies out the window, and disappears in the direction he just pointed.

 

Present Day

Sherlock rubs his hands together as John sits in the chair.

He thought the puzzle had been solved, but there was something about Doctor Watson that he had yet to place.

Sherlock had figured out the limp, and that John would be an excellent assistant in his investigations, but there was something else.

He kept thinking about John’s shadow, and how it stretched out on the pavement when they had met earlier in the day. Something about it’s shape, or how it wasn’t quite right.

Sherlock put the idea in the back of his mind, to work itself out while he decided what case to take next.

 

1986

Sherlock laughs when John closes his eyes for the first half of the flight to away.

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to think happy thoughts to fly,” Sherlock shouted over the wind.

John opens his eyes and Sherlock grins.

As they approach Away, John begins to smile, and almost complains when they land.

It’s bright and sunny, and they have no shadows. Sherlock climbs up a tree and grabs the green and red fruit.

“You have to try this,” he gives it to John, who bites carefully and then smiles.

“This is amazing.”

“I know. You can do anything here. Everything tastes perfect, and the water is just right for swimming. I’ve been here forever and I’ve barely grown at all. Wait until you meet all the others!”

John grins.

Sherlock doesn’t know why he has made a friend of this particular boy, he is nothing like the others in Away. John is a good boy. Sherlock is not.

(Sherlock is not bad, he is just from Away. There are no rules, except the ones they make as a group, and those rues are mostly don’t kill anyone and please wash more often.)

“Let’s go find the others, and we can play catch the frog.”

  
“Is it a normal frog?”

“Absolutely not,” Sherlock smiles and grabs John’s hand.

 

Present Day

John knows he is staring, but the candlelight and shadow have put the idea that he knows Sherlock from somewhere in the past.

It’s why he asks him the personal questions, trying to get a sense of where Sherlock comes from.

(Education and money, of course, but who does he know, and how does he know them? Did they cross paths at a shop once, and he made an impression on John?)

None of these thoughts are quite right, so John puts them aside to focus on the present. He’ll remember eventually, it’s just hiding in a place he can’t quite access now.

Then he’s chasing a cab through London, and all he can think of is his feet on the pavement and the wind in his face, as if he was almost flying.

 

1988

Sherlock waits by their normal window for hours before he decides to go looking for John. He grabs a stray coat and zips it up, and heads toward the nearest adult.

(He doesn’t like adults as a normal rule, but he knows that here, they have all the information.)

“Excuse me,I’m a new transfer student here, but I was looking to find my cousin?”

The woman looks at him, and raises her eyebrows. “And who is your cousin?”

“John.” Sherlock panics for a moment, trying to remember if John had given both of his names. “John Watson.”

“Oh, I suppose no one told you. John transferred out of here last month. I could look up—where are you going young man?”

Sherlock looks for John in all the normal places they meet, and he is not there.

“I don’t know here,” he says to himself. “I don’t know where to look.”

Sherlock breaths deeply and spins around before taking a step.

“I guess I’ll go this way,” he says.

 

Present Day

Sherlock and John are laughing in the hallway when Sherlock stops, and points at John.

“What?” John asks.

“I remember.”

John frowns, realizing Sherlock has felt the same sense of something he has since they met.

Sherlock, for the first time since they met (for the second time,) looks nervous and unsure.

“You are John Watson.”

“Yeah. We established that.”

“You used to wear a blue blazer, and a tie, and we went Away.”

“Sherlock—“

John pauses, and he remembers the strange boy that he didn’t want to leave.

“We flew across the stars.”

“And caught flying frogs with our feet.”

Sherlock smiles widely. “I forgot I was looking for you. And I grew up.”

“Well, just because we grew up doesn’t mean that we can’t go back, right?”

John holds onto the brief hope, for Away is so far, and yet he remembers it like yesterday.

Sherlock bites his lip. “I suppose we’ll have to research if we can, won’t we?”

Sherlock holds out his hand, and John takes it.

“Maybe we can find our shadows in the rain,” John says.

“Oh, we will.”


End file.
